The National Union of Students of the United Kingdom (NUS) is a confederation of students' unions in the United Kingdom. Around 600 students' unions are affiliated, accounting for more than 95% of all higher and further education unions in the UK. Although the National Union of Students is the central organisation for all affiliated unions in the UK, there are also the devolved national sub-bodies NUS Scotland in Scotland, NUS Wales (UCM Cymru) in Wales and NUS-USI in Northern Ireland (the latter being co-administered by the Union of Students in Ireland). There is also an NUS Area for London, called NUS London.

Membership

Constituent membership is granted to students' unions by National Conference or National Executive Council by a two-thirds majority vote

Individual membership is granted automatically to members of students' unions with constituent membership, sabbatical officers of constituent members, members of the National Executive Council and sabbatical conveners of NUS Areas

Associate membership is granted by a two-thirds majority vote of National Executive Council to:

Student Organisations in Association - any national student organisations

Partner Organisations in Association - non-student organisations which sympathise with the NUS

Individuals in Association - any individual who supports the objects of the NUS

NUS Areas - geographically-defined associations of students' unions

Honorary membership is granted by National Conference to "any person or organisation as it sees fit"

Of these types of membership, only constituent members may vote on or submit policy proposals to the National Conference. Constituent members and associate members are required to pay a subscription fee as a condition of their membership.[2]

Politicisation and Broad Left, 1968–1982

In the aftermath of the Second World War and with the onset of the Cold War, the National Union of Students had adopted a "no politics" clause in its charter in an attempt to distance itself from its 1930s flirtations with communism. During the 1950s it had thus concerned itself with collective bargaining over student grants, teaching salaries and education. This apolitical consensus was challenged in concert with the international protests of 1968[3] and as the Cold War intensified. At the 1969 NUS conference, then president Trevor Fisk came up against Jack Straw (then close to Bert Ramelson of the Communist Party of Great Britain, but much later Foreign Secretary under the New Labour government of Tony Blair) over the issue. Straw supported student protests against US military involvement in the Vietnam War, while Fisk advocated neutrality; Straw's side won and the "no politics" clause was removed.[4]

One of the NUS' protest campaigns which was of particular significance during the 1970s and the 1980s was the boycott campaign against National Party governed South Africa as part of the Anti-Apartheid Movement.[7] In 1970, NUS vice president Tony Klug visited South Africa and met with Steve Biko of the SASO among others.[7] Members also attempted to disrupt South African rugby and cricket matches in the United Kingdom during the 1970s.[8] In the 1980s, the NUS played a significant role in getting Barclay's Bank to divest from South Africa, attacking it as "Boerclay Bank".[7]

Throughout this period, the NUS presidency was dominated by the Broad Left, within which the Communist Party of Great Britain (where Eurocommunism was most popular among students rather than the pro-Soviet "Tankie" anti-revisionists) predominated and usually supplied the president, but were backed up Labour and the Liberals. They did so to work as a voting bloc against both the Conservatives and Militant. The first of these Broad Left presidents was Charles Clarke (later a Home Secretary under Blair) who as a member of the Clause Four Group, won the National Organisation of Labour Students back from Militant influence. Other presidents included Sue Slipman (who began on the Eurocommunist wing on the Communist Party of Great Britain but ended up a founding member of the Social Democratic Party by 1981), Trevor Phillips (a Broad Left independent and the first black NUS president, who later led the race relations group the Runnymede Trust) and David Aaronovitch (who was then a Eurocommunist, but later a journalist aligned to neoconservatism).

Labour Students presidency, 1982–2000

From 1982 with the election of Neil Stewart, until Andrew Pakes stood down in 2000, the presidency of the National Union of Students was controlled by the National Organisation of Labour Students, which shortened its name to Labour Students in 1994.

Education finance

Under the leadership of Wes Streeting the NUS abandoned its long-standing commitment to free education and backed a graduate tax as its preferred outcome of the Browne Review into higher education funding. Before the 2010 General Election, the NUS invited candidates sign a pledge not to raise tuition fees, receiving over 1000 signatories from prospective parliamentary candidates. This became a very high-profile campaign when many Liberal Democrat MPs, who all signed individual NUS pledges stating they would vote against any rise in tuition fees if elected, had to abstain or do the opposite as part of their coalition agreement.

With an attendance of over 50,000 people, it was the largest British demonstration since the Iraq War protest. This led to various more demos until the rise in tuition fees was passed.[9]

The day before the vote to allow a rise in tuition fees, the Daily Telegraph reported that they had seen emails that suggested Aaron Porter had supported, rather than increase tuition fees, cuts of up to 80% should be made to student support packages including grants and loans.[10] Porter responded to the claims on NUS Connect that "In all of these meetings and communications we stated our firm and clear opposition to cuts" and that the distortion of the discussions was "political desperation from a coalition government losing the arguments on its own policies".[11]

On 9 April 2014 the National Union of Students passed policy at its national conference to reverse its position on education funding. The call for a graduate tax was abandoned in favour Amendment 213b (listed as 215c)[12] which calls for free education funded through progressive taxation.

Governance review

The 2008 Conference in Blackpool was dominated by the governance review debate and vote. The proposals were for a restructuring of the running of the Union but the vote was lost by 25 votes (a two-thirds majority was required).[13] The review was criticised for what was felt by detractors to be an attack on the organisation's democratic accountability.[14] Its supporters however defended the review as providing a more 'innovative' corporate structure which was hoped to make it more credible in negotiating policy, rather than simply 'reactive'.[15] This was not well received by many in the executive with President, Gemma Tumelty, vowing to press ahead with reform.[16] The perceived lack of progress on governance reform has also prompted Imperial College Union to hold a referendum on disaffiliation.[17]

Revised proposals were drafted and submitted to an extraordinary conference in November 2008. The conference passed the proposals by 4 votes to 1. A second extraordinary conference to ratify the proposals (the constitution requires that any changes are passed by two consecutive conferences) took place on 20 January 2009. The proposals were accepted by a huge majority and the new constitution came into force.[citation needed]

The award is open to students in further and higher education, with the prize allowing them to work with sponsors to develop real-world reporting and writing experience for two weeks. In 2013 the top prize was a fellowship with the US-based Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting and a $2,000 travel grant to cover an under-reported topic of ones choice.[19]

ISIS, Malia Bouattia, and disaffiliations

In October 2014, NUS National Executive Committee rejected a motion to condemn the militant group Islamic State because some executive members "felt that the wording of the motion being presented would unfairly demonise all Muslims rather than solely the group of people it set out to rightfully condemn."[20] NUS received criticism for this stance given its previous condemnation of the UKIP political party.[21] Despite a statement from NUS[22] confirming that "a new motion will be taken to the next NUS National Executive Committee meeting, which will specifically condemn the politics and methods of ISIS and offer solidarity for the Kurdish people," media coverage of the vote caused some student's union members to speculate that the NUS itself has been infiltrated by extremist sympathisers.[23] At the following executive meeting on 3 December 2014, a similar motion, which condemned ISIS, expressed solidarity with the Kurdish people, and called on NUS to challenge "Islamophobia and all forms of racism being whipped up" was resubmitted and easily passed.[24]

In 2016, a number of universities across the UK, such as Oxford, Newcastle, Cambridge and others, held referenda on whether or not their student unions should leave the NUS. The grounds for this range from perceived anti-Semitism within the NUS, a lack of democracy within the NUS, not feeling represented by what many view as an overly politicised movement, and others.[36][37] The campaign has been marred by allegations of cheating or breaking referendum rules by the NUS at various universities by allegations of racism, tokenism, and others by students campaigning both for and against disaffiliation. Despite this, prestigious universities such as Newcastle have left the NUS, with others such as Oxford and Cambridge voting to remain.[38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45]

In addition to this, several centristmotions were passed, including major democratic reforms designed to better engage students and students' unions, similar to (and indeed, more extensive than) those proposed in 2008. The changes, developed from "two [years] of consultation with hundreds of students’ unions, [as well as] legal and expert advice,"[49] were described as "the most comprehensive and wide-ranging structural reforms in NUS history".[50]

WonkHE policy commentator Nona Buckley-Irvine wrote that with the "significant ideological shift from the hard left to more moderate candidates, sector bodies and universities will prepare themselves for a rethink in how to approach NUS going forward".[51]

Democracy

The NUS holds national conferences once a year. National Conference is the sovereign body of NUS, and is where NUS policy is decided. Other conferences, such as Regional Conferences, Women's Conference, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Trans Students' Conference (changed as of 2004), Disabled Students' Conference, Black Students' Conference, Mature and Part-Time Students' Conference and the International Students' Conference (created in 2004) are run to enhance the representation of the specific members they include.

NUS Services

NUS Services provides collective purchasing, support and marketing services to NUS-affiliated students' unions. Its shareholders consist of over 200 NUS-affiliated students' unions, and it is directed by a board and committees composed of volunteers from these shareholder unions.[citation needed]

The Association for Managers in Students' Unions voted to merge with NUS and NUS Services in 2010.[52][53]

NUS Extra

NUS Extra is a discount card which can be purchased by students. It is produced by NUS Services in conjunction with NUS, and affiliated students’ unions receive commission on every card sold to their members, however the card is available to all students regardless of whether they are members of an affiliated student union or not.[citation needed]

NUS Charitable Services

NUS has established a new charity to drive improvement in students’ unions. It will focus on students’ union quality, talent management, equality and diversity, strategic development and turnaround, ethical and environmental work, and fundraising.[citation needed]

As of 2013, the department employs over 25 members of staff, delivering far-reaching behavioural change programmes among staff and students such as Green Impact, Student Switch Off, and Student Eats.

The department is currently managing the pilot year of NUS Students' Green Fund - a £5 million grant from HEFCE, supporting 25 student-led, transformative sustainability projects at students' unions across England.[citation needed]

Criticisms

The NUS has come in for criticism from those students' unions who are not affiliated. Sen Ganesh, then president of Imperial College Union, said in 2002 that "NUS's claim to be representative of students is not borne out by their work", especially as "the NUS is dominated by Labour students and this diminishes the ability to address student issues in an impartial fashion".[54]

Another criticism leveled at NUS is the absence of direct democracy in electing national offices. Officers of NUS are elected at conferences by delegates chosen by affiliated unions of NUS. Critics, from both within and outside the student movement, have argued that consultation by unions with their members over who should represent the students' union at national conferences is often minimal, and some have argued in favour of changes to the NUS constitution that would result in a one-member-one-vote policy.[55][56]

The NUS has also been criticised for prioritisation of NUS Extra over campaigning on issues which affect students.[57] Despite it being NUS policy that none of the discounts on the original free NUS card would be moved to NUS Extra, proposed by Cambridge University Students' Union, NUS Treasurer Dave Lewis did not follow policy and removed the discounts from the original free NUS card.[58]

Other critics have focussed on the organisation's perceived failure to campaign effectively on student issues such as tuition fees and prescription costs,[59] and have advocated that students and unions coordinate independently of the NUS to campaign on the national stage.[60][61]

Financial crisis

In the mid-2000s, NUS faced a financial crisis, caused by a coinciding of spiraling expenditure and decreasing income. A series of measures were proposed to address this, of which the most controversial included a series of changes to the constitutional and democratic processes. In 2004, two emergency conferences passed some of the changes proposed, albeit not without fierce dispute between those claiming the proposals were necessary reforms to maintain the existence of the organisation and those arguing that they were aimed at curbing democracy and involvement. The 2006 NUS Conference passed a policy which enabled NUS to launch NUS Extra in September 2006.[62]

The subsequent cancellation of the debate by Durham Union Society President Anna Birley on safety grounds was met with fierce backlash. NUS President Wes Streeting was prompted to personally appear before the Durham Union Society to apologise for the actions of the officers concerned, though outrage among Durham students was sufficient that a significant number protested outside the debating chamber at the time.[66] A protest group on Facebook quickly amassed over 2,500 members.[67] An official petition was lodged with Durham Students' Union to call for a referendum on disaffiliation from NUS.[68] On 12 March 2010, the referendum concluded with a majority of voting students choosing to disaffiliate.[69]

Another referendum by those in favour of NUS membership was called shortly following the "no" result, and in January 2011, 60% of Durham students taking part in the referendum voted to reaffiliate with the NUS on a turnout of 21.6% (compared with 14.5% turnout to disaffiliate the previous year).[69]

Liar Liar Campaign

In the run up to the 2015 General Election the NUS launched its Liar Liar campaign aimed at unseating MPs who broke promises regarding the cost of education.[70] At an estimated cost of £40,000 and consisting of a social media campaign alongside billboards, the campaign was well received by many students, however also came under criticism for being politically motivated specifically against Liberal Democrat MPs as opposed to members of all parties.[71][72]

Posters promoting the campaign were also removed from several train stations on the grounds that Network Rail is an "arms length public sector body" and must therefore remain politically neutral. The NUS claimed that the removal of the posters was an attempt to "gag" the union.[73]

NUS Toni Pearce defended the union's actions saying that the breach of a promise regarding tuition fees: "Wasn't a minor misdemeanour. It was an outright lie. We have an obligation to hold them to account for this, and we will."[74]